I decide to publish a book (going down to Wheatmark)

"Night in Greenwich Village" painted by Ronnie De Nota 1998
Sunday March 11, 2007

Of course all the dramas in my life now are about my book. It didn’t begin till last week-end when I decided I wanted to call Wheatmark to ask them a question. I no longer remember my question, maybe I was going to ask them if we could drive down there to see their books.

But when I googled Wheatmark to find their phone number, what I got was the link to their website. And when I clicked that there was tremendous information about Wheatmark on it, none of which I knew. I found out it cost $800, which is about $100 more than I thought it would be. I found out it is print-on-demand. I found out they only give me 5 copies, any more I want I have to order. But all the work of turning it into a book they do. They do ISBN number, whatever that is, and Library of Congress, whatever that is. They list it on Amazon which is very nice. They give you a glossy front cover, that is a treat. And for the back cover they want you to write your teaser, something which will make people want to read your book.

I was very interested in everything I learned about Wheatmark on the web. And before I went into the sunshine on my outside couch to think about it all, I emailed the link to my mom. I thought she would be interested to learn about Wheatmark.

When I had first mentioned to her on email I had made the decision to do it, she had been enthusiastic about the idea, but that was before. Neither her nor me knew anything about Wheatmark, so everything I told her came from my imagination, and of course what I pictured was very different from what was. I thought my mom would enjoy sharing in this enterprise with me, that I would email her all the steps along the way.

When I first lied in the sunshine and thought about what I learned from reading their site, I was daunted. I thought “is this a good deal?” I had assumed when you self-publish you pay them money, but then you get books galore, as many as you could possibly want. I had no idea after 5 free copies I have to pay same price as anyone else.

But as confused indecisive and daunted as I was, my Higher Self was completely decisive. Each time I thought “I don’t know if I want Wheatmark,” my Higher Self said “you want Wheatmark.” Each time I thought “maybe I should look into something else,” my Higher Self said “we're not going to look into anything else, we are doing Wheatmark.” Altho I could not make up my mind, my Higher Self had made up her mind, “we are doing Wheatmark.” And at this time in my life I simply do whatever my Higher Self says to do.

Eventually most of the doubts began to dissipate. I still had no idea why Wheatmark was such a good idea, but I stopped questioning it. Oddly enough, what my mind moved on to was the teaser for the back cover. And her two ideas for my teaser on back cover made me laugh out loud so hard that for first time I thought this enterprise might be fun.

My first idea for back cover when I was still lying on sun couch were not the fun ideas which came to me at table. I thought I would have to put in a blurb saying why I was such a good writer. That was what I remembered on backs of other people’s books, some famous author would write “this book is wonderful and fun and fresh and funny,” or whatever. So I thought I would just write that. That I would get 4 adjectives from my Higher Self, and write that and credit it to "Anne's editor."

It wasn’t till I got up and sat at the sun table and lit a cigarette that I remembered the 3 way conversation I had been in in swim pool a few months after I had given Sue and Sally a booklet of the stories I had written back in NYC. And the 3 of us treaded water and Sally said to Sue “her writing is a big nothing,” and Sue said “no it’s not, it’s genre writing, for a small and limited audience who likes that kind of writing.” I had giggled inwardly at the time and put it in a tiny short story I wrote the next morning.

So even tho I had planned to write a praiseworthy blurb about my writing from an imaginary person, I thought, Of course I will use that teeny paragraph where Sally called my writing “a big nothing.”

And from that moment on I was into my book, I thought this could be a lot of fun.

Sunday evening my mom emailed, don’t spent $800 to self publish. You have very little money. Save it for a rainy day. She said “we in the family enjoy your stories, but do you think people will be enticed to buy your book?” She was worried no one would buy it and I was just throwing 800 in the garbage can. But I misread her email and thought she was saying no one would enjoy my stories. And I began to wonder if they would.

On Monday morning when I went to my machine to work on my book I had lost heart for it. I sat there in emptiness till Bill came back from bringing the car to the mechanic and wasn’t exactly sure what he was going to do next. And then a miracle happened. When I had found the phone number for Wheatmark on Saturday I had actually called and left a message saying “I want to publish my book with Wheatmark, I have some questions to ask.”

And just when Bill returned from mechanic, the guy from Wheatmark called. My Higher Self said “tell him you want to look at the books, that you want to come down and see them, that you have decided you want to publish your book with Wheatmark.” The man’s name was Grael and because of the emptiness I had been in, the release from it was euphoria.

It turned out he had lived in the East Village for 7 years before he left NYC in 2002. He had lived on 9th Street between First and Second. He asked where I had lived. And we each said to each other “I know your block.” Then he had moved to Rivington Street. And I said “girl at pool said Delancy Street is now fancy-shmancy, I can’t believe it, it used to be a slum.” And he said “it has all changed since you lived there Anne, it is now expensive.” I said “where do regular people live now?” And he said “far out in Queens.” I said “you mean Flushing, like where I grew up?”

He said Katz's used to be his favorite restaurant. And I said “the 2nd Avenue Deli closed.” And he was shocked. He said “I never heard that from my friends back in the East Village.” And I said “I didn’t either, but the article about it was posted on my news forum.” I said “I practically fell over because who would imagine learning that on a news forum where most of the posters live in Texas, that an article about the 2nd Avenue Deli would go up.”

The reason I was so excited and enthusiastic and even a bit wild in my conversation with Grael, was because his first words to me were so encouraging that I confided about my mother’s email to him and its effect on me. When I met Grael in person one hour later, I now understand he was too young to realize any mother would email “save your money for a rainy day.” It made him 100 per cent on my side. If my mother was going to discourage me from doing the book, then Grael was going to encourage me, and he set about making every single word in his phone call and later on when we met, completely encouraging. And he succeeded to the skies. He was an angel when I needed an angel.

We had a long talk about the East Village because Grael liked talking about it, and I was thrilled that my editor knew the East Village. If he knew Tucson and he knew the East Village then he knew where my stories were coming from. I couldn’t believe my luck finding an editor who understood me so well. It turns out that Grael isn’t my editor. I found out when I arrived there is no editor, no one reads your book. You send it to them electronically, they don’t even want you to bother printing it up for them on your printer. They print it up from what you send them electronically. They format it for you, but no one reads it.

But I didn’t know that when I was talking to Grael, I assumed he was my editor. We had a wonderful conversation, and I thought “O boy, have I lucked out, I found the perfect editor for me.” And I still thought that way during most of the conversation with Grael in person, when Bill and I went down to Wheatmark. It wasn’t till the end of the conversation that I discovered no one reads my book. Altho by the end of it I think Grael was curious to read it when it comes out. I told him I wrote a very lovely story about the Lower East Side in it and he will like it. He was so clearly more interested in my stories about our old neighborhood than about Tucson.

Altho we both said on phone how much we love Tucson. And he said after he left New York, he lived in Chicago and Washington DC. And I said “I heard Chicago is wonderful.” And he said “O it is.” And he told me all the wonderful things about Chicago. I said “if I knew how wonderful Chicago was back then, I would have moved there, but now I don’t want to live in a big city again, my experience in New York was too relentless, we had no car, we had the dog, we never got out to refresh ourselves in nature.” And he said that is what happened to him too.

Our conversation was so wonderful and made me so enthusiastic about doing the book, that when he said “when do you want to come down Anne, why don’t you come down now.” My Higher Self said “yes, go for it.” So I said “my husband just got back from car mechanic, he is at loose ends, it is the perfect time for him to drive me, when do you go on your lunch hour?” He said “it doesn’t matter, I will wait for you.” I said “I live at Fifth and Swan.” He said “then it will take you no time to get here.” So my Higher Self said “tell him you will leave in 20 minutes.” So we both said “great!” I was so uninhibited by that time I said “I am just in bulky sweater now from the cold.” He said “it is warming up.” I said “I will put on a bra.”

Bill was just starting to eat his lunch, that he had been preparing for himself while I had been on phone with Grael. “Will you drive me to Wheatmark?” He said “OK.” He said “but it’s probably way out in the boondocks.” But I looked it up on computer, and they had address and map. And Bill said “it is just two blocks from the swim club, it is not way out in the boondocks, it is close by.” He was relieved.

So I found my bra, and a little black blouse with capped sleeves that I had never worn, I forget now which skirt I chose to wear, and black patent leather high heels, where I had cut off the back strap and middle strap yesterday with scissors, because I discovered I never wore them when I had to go to that trouble of strapping them on. I hadn’t been able to do a perfect job with scissors so it looked a little trashy.

But the odd thing is, that now that Grael thought I was an East Villager, I discovered I wanted that East Village trashy look. I hadn’t realized how totally suburban my look had become in Tucson, till I put on the patent leather open-toed high heels with scissors marks showing, and realized “perfect! East Village trashy.” Black blouse, black bra, and black skirt completed the look. And I planned to put on red lipstick before I got out of the car (my lipstick was in the car).

And when I got out my new pocketbook, which I like, I thought “o no! this pocketbook is not trashy looking.” I had bought it because it was so pretty, with pinks and purples, but it made me look well-dressed, which is not the East Village trashy look at all. But I didn’t have time to look for a pocketbook which might work, and I didn’t think I owned any (I have gazillion pocketbooks but none are East Village trashy). And besides I wanted to plan the stuff to put in there so I would have what I needed. I wanted cigs, and a lighter, and a pen. I looked for my new cute notebook to write in but I couldn’t find it. And Bill said “take your swimming stuff, we can swim at Jimmy’s pool afterwards.”

So I wrote down the address, and Bill studied the map from Google so he knew just where it was, and we got into the car, and the trip took no time, and he found it right away. And Bill said “I’ll sit in the car.” And I said “come in, don’t you want to meet my editor.” And he said “OK.”

Grael turned out to be much younger than I pictured. I assumed he was my age, but he looked around 30. He told me he is a writer too, he writes screen plays. I said “I want my book to be very affordable, I thought $5.99 would be nice price.” And he brought out a list of what the prices are. And it looked like they would sell my book for $13.99 which seemed a lot to ask people to pay for it. He said “how long is your book?” And I said “it will be short, it is just my Tucson stories.” And Bill said “why not put in all your East Village stories too then, make it a bigger book.” Bill thought if I was paying $800, put all the stories in the book.

But that wasn’t my plan. My Higher Self had come up with a very interesting idea for me. She said “if you are putting all this momentum into publishing a book, keep up the momentum, after you publish this book, keep going, publish your two books of stories you wrote back in NYC.” And I planned to do that, even tho it would take big work on my part. Those manuscripts are up in my closet in a manuscript box. But Grael said if I am willing to pay for it, they can scan them for me.

I told Grael my East Village stories are hotter than my Tucson stories. For some reason Grael agreed with me, just put out the Tucson stories first. I said “they are not hot, altho there are a few cute ones in there.” Grael said “what you want Anne is to earn enough from your first book to pay for publishing your second book.” And I looked at him with face full of love.

By this time I was totally confused, but Grael was not, he understood everything. And I told him how I had tortured myself for 2 days after I read how they wanted it formatted, and he said “stop torturing yourself, none of that matters, just send it.”

And that was pretty much it. Grael said he wants to read a copy when it comes out, and he will pay for it. I said “don’t be silly, I’ll buy you a copy, you deserve it because you encouraged me.” He told me anyone can order a book from them and get it at the same discount rate I do, 40 per cent off. And a light bulb went off in my head, and I said “I think my mother should pay full price, because she tried to discourage me.” And he said “yes, she has to pay retail.” And I burst out laughing that my mom has to pay retail.

"How it all started"

DANCER by Layla Edwards

"How it all started"
Wednesday, November 29, 2006

I had dropped out of college when I was 20, and I went to look for a job. I went to The American Museum of Natural History and called on the house telephone to Lew. My friend from college, Sue, had worked for him on a fellowship from NSA. And she had brought him home for dinner. He seemed like a nice man, but I had been too shy to notice. I was intimidated a grown up was in the house, but he was nice for a grown up. I called him on the house telephone and said “Dr. Irizarri, I am Anne, Sue Holper’s friend, you had dinner at our house, I am looking for a job.”

And he said “stay right there, Anne, I am coming down, you are an answer to a prayer.” And he came down and told me he was just wishing he had 25 extra hours a week to do the things he wanted, and since he didn’t have them, he wanted a Girl Friday to do them for him, and he had no idea about how to go about finding a Girl Friday, and he hired me on the spot.

Then I called my mother.
“I decided to drop out of college for one semester” I told her.
“But what will you do” she said.
“I will get a job” I said.
“But who will ever hire you” she said.
“Dr. Lewis Irizarri, anthropologist at The American Museum of Natural History just did” I told her.

That was a wonderful job and Lew turned out to be the loveliest employer I ever had as well as a great friend who has lasted me my whole life.

It caused a huge commotion at home when I decided to drop out of college, even tho I told them it was just for one semester. When my mother said “what will you do” it shut her right up that I said Lew had hired me. After all I was working at the American Museum of Natural History for an anthropologist, a curator of ethnology. Their whole idea of college was so it would give me a job. And the job I had for Lew sounded good on paper. Or should I say, where I was working and who I was working for, sounded very good on paper. They had no idea what my actual job was. They probably thought I was a research assistant.

“Annie dropped out of college” my dad told his sisters.
“O no!” they said, “what will she do.”
“She is working for an anthropologist at the American Museum of Natural History, she is his research assistant.”
“O that doesn’t sound too bad” they said.
It sounded like a job I would get when I had gotten my degree, before I became a school teacher like everyone else in the family.

I was living at home then. And I would get dressed each day and take the bus and 3 subway trains to the Museum. My job was 5 hours a day. I would arrive at the Museum and Lew would make a list of what he wanted. And I would set out to do it. A friend of Lew’s and mine at the Museum, a nice girl from Wisconsin, used to refer to my job as “are you still doing Lew’s shopping for him?” Which was an accurate description of my job, altho Lew and I both preferred calling it, I was his Girl Friday.

My first assignment was to go to Madison Square Gardens and get their schedule of their college basketball games. I was told to make sure it is the college games. Then he sent me to the 42nd Street Library to look up zip codes of some people he was writing to in Maine. It was all on a list. So I went from one place to another. I realize now everything Lew had me get for him or look up for him, people no longer hire a Girl Friday to do that for them, it is all on internet.

But I went to Madison Square Garden and got him the schedule of the college basketball games, I went to the ticket office. Then I walked over to the 42nd Street Library and looked up all the things he wanted me to look up. And then I walked along 5th Avenue and window shopped, and I think I bought myself a pair of shoes. And he wanted a large box of Kleenex and I bought that for him. And in all my long time of working for him, it was the only error I ever made. It turns out when Lew had written Kleenex down on the paper he meant Kleenex. I had bought tissues. Kleenex pops up. I had to exchange it.

Then because he was a member of the faculty at Columbia University, or something, he had library privileges there. He was allowed to take out books. And he had a long list of books he wanted. That was the only assignment which was a little hard, carrying all those books back to the Museum. I guess I took the bus, but still I had to walk to the bus stop with them and then walk to the Museum.

All my jobs were variations on the above it seems to me. I kept track of my own hours, and Lew paid me 50 dollars a week for 25 hours. I felt like I got the best of the bargain because I would do long window shopping and shopping on way back to the Museum. And I was astounded years later, when Lew had had a slew of Girl Fridays who followed in my footsteps, when he told Janet, I was the best of all of them. Janet said his newest one is always lying down in the ladies room at the Museum.

Sue and Rosemary had worked for Bob on a Fellowship. Rosemary and Bob remained best friends, she would visit us in the office. Rosemary was my age, so when June came, she graduated Hunter College, and my assignment for that day was to buy all the stuff so we would have party for Rosemary in the office. I thought “this sure is a neat job, going to work means buying the candy and cake and having a party with Rosemary in the office.”

A few months after I began working for Lew, one of my boyfriends, Kenny, returned home from Italy, and was staying at his parents’ house in Queens. He called me up and said “I have decided to write a novel and I think you would be easy to live with, do you want to share an apartment with me in the East Village?” I had a big crush on Kenny then. I think he had other girlfriends. He said he chose me because “you won’t bother me while I am writing.” And I accepted the offer even tho it was hardly an expression of passionate love. It had been my dream for long time to live with a guy.

I didn’t know what the East Village was, I had never lived there, I had always lived with roommates on the Upper West Side of Manhattan while I had been in college. But Kenny picked me up, and we found an apartment on East 12th Street between A and B. So I told my parents, “I am moving into an apartment with Sally Blake.” She had been my friend from City College and come home one evening for dinner, and my brother and father were smitten with her, such a beautiful blond, and my mom liked her too. I said “Kenny is helping me move my stuff,” and she said “OK.” And I moved in with Kenny on East 12th Street.

I completely forgot my parents thought I was living with Sally Blake, till one night, when I was in bed with Kenny, two young men knocked on the door. I could hear them from the other side of the wall. And one was a friend from college.
He said “Anne, your mother gave me your address, and I am here with my friend Steve, to take you and Sally out.” I don’t think I opened the door. I called thru the wall, “I am not living with Sally, I am living with Kenny.” And they went away. I had had a crush on him in college and he had never responded, and I thought “wow if you wait long enough he did ask me out.” But it was too late, I was living with Kenny now. Also I realized how much my mom believed I was living with Sally, if she directed the two young men to my apartment so they could take us out on a date.

My mom decided to visit me at the Museum with her new best friend Nicole from Cairo, Egypt. They were both going for their Masters in Public Health at Columbia together. Lew was very gracious to both the women and I took them around, and showed them everything on the 5th floor where the public is not allowed to go. And I also confided to my mom "I am not living with Sally, I am living with Kenny and I am very happy." Which caused total apoplexy. She had a fit and her whole visit was ruined.

“Why are you so upset” I kept saying, “I am happy, that is all that matters.”
“That is not all that matters” she kept saying.
“If you love him why don’t you marry him” she said.
“I don’t want to get married, I like living with him.”
She was very upset about it. When I walked with Nicole alone I said “I don’t know why she is so upset.”

I was now 21. I had moved in with Kenny month before my 21st birthday. I liked my life at the time. I loved living with Kenny in the East Village (we became close after we began living together; he proposed marriage). I loved the East Village, I loved working for Lew at the Museum. Kenny was working for his dad. His dad had an attaché case factory on Broom Street. Kenny worked in the office. He had all those beautiful clothes he had bought in Rome. And each morning we had breakfast, and then wore very attractive clothes. I was wearing very pretty nylon stockings then, with nice shoes, nice skirt, nice blouse. Maybe Kenny wore a suit, and he had an attaché case of course. And we set off for the subway together. Kenny had developed the habit of drinking tea when he was in Rome, so we had tea for breakfast. But my craving for coffee had not left, so after I left Kenny I stopped at coffee shop for cup of coffee and donut, and then took subway up to the Museum.

And Kenny introduced me to pot. I don’t know if I would have smoked it, if I wasn’t just starting to live with him, and still had huge crush on him, and wasn’t yet comfortable in his company. I was trying to please him. So it was a toss up, my reluctance to "take a drug" or my desire to please him. And my desire to please him won. I took the drug, I was willing to try pot. And almost instantly-- maybe not the first time or the second time when nothing happened, but the third time when I got high-- it was a great love affair. It was a love affair which ended very badly, but for a long time pot was a huge joy in my life.

It was my first experience of liberation. I just didn’t know I could have that. To be free to be myself. And to actually experience my own mind. I found my own mind thrilling, I loved it. And I loved being free to be myself. It was so much fun to be myself.

Nancy Cantor

GALLERY FLOWERS Layla Edwards

Thursday, Thanksgiving, November 23, 2006

I dreamt about Nancy Cantor all night. She was my first friend after college. I graduated college in August. I had to spend that extra summer studying for the finals I had not taken during finals week in June and doing term papers. It was a wild summer, the “Summer of Love”. And I had sublet an apartment for the summer on the corner of St Marks Place. My friend from college, Francine, roomed with me. I was stoned the whole summer and do not know how I managed to take those finals and write those papers. But by end of summer I did, and I got my degree. And then immediately found a job at The Riverdale Children’s Agency.

I had gone down for that job because the year before Wendy had worked there. Sometimes I would meet her in Central Park during her lunch hour, right by the Agency, it was at 79th and Madison Avenue. Because Wendy worked there I thought it would be a nice place to work. So I interviewed and they hired me. The woman in charge, Mrs. Streeter, liked me in the interview and hired me. Olive Streeter, the name comes back to me now.

The weekend before I was going to start work, a friend I had been a camp counselor with 3 summers before, invited me to go swimming in Rye, New York, where his parents had their home and where he was staying for the summer. He picked me up in his car at St Marks Place and First Avenue, and I must have worn my bikini under my sundress, because I remember taking off my dress in the car to show him my new bikini (it was my first bikini) and he said “will it stay up?”

Ken-- his name was Ken-- Ken Adler. I always felt very close to him because one of the times when he had invited me to his parents’ house in Rye so I could swim in the bay there, we had been swimming and he said “Anne I have a cramp in my leg, I can’t make it back to shore.” And I said “put your hands on my shoulders, I’ll swim under you and swim you back to shore,” which I did. At dinner that night he told his parents, “Anne saved me, she rescued me in the water.” And they said “O really” and the conversation moved on. For all the huge drama which goes on in learning how to be a junior life saver when I was 11 years old, all the huge dramatic rescues I did when we took turns playing the victim, the one actual rescue I did was the quietest simplest thing which ever happened. I swam him to shore, he said “thank you,” he told his parents at dinner, and it was clear nobody believed us, and that was that.

On my previous visits I had stayed in his big sister’s room and it was a beautiful room. Their whole house was a mansion, which made visiting there so much fun for me. I loved swimming in the bay, I liked Ken Adler a lot, and I found it a lot of fun to stay in a mansion, and in the bedroom of this princess sister, it was a bedroom for a princess.

This was the last time I visited there. And on my last day the Princess herself arrived. I finally got to meet her, Margie Adler. And when Ken drove me back to the city, Margie was in the car with us. And when I mentioned I start work the next day at Riverdale Children’s Agency, Margie turned to her brother and said “Isn’t that where Nancy Cantor works?” Apparently a friend of Margie’s named Nancy Cantor worked there and I got so excited.

I was thrilled with the fairy tale princess Margie. I barely knew her, just that car ride back to the city, but I had stayed in her princess bedroom 3 times. In my mind she was Princess Charming. So naturally I saw Nancy Cantor as an extension of her, it was the next best thing to being friends with Margie.

When I arrived the first morning I asked the girl at reception where you check in, “is Nancy Cantor here?” And she said “Nancy is on vacation, she will be back in a week.” And I waited the whole week, and then sat by reception when the week was over, to wait for Nancy. Each woman who arrived, I thought “is that Nancy?” Finally one woman arrived and the woman at reception said “that is Nancy Cantor.” So I followed her up the steps, and said, “I am a friend of Margie Adler's, she told me you work here.” Nancy said “I just got back from Nantucket, I rode my bicycle everywhere, I am lost without my bicycle.” That was our first conversation.

Nancy says now she tried to give me the brush-off because I had said I was friend of Margie Adler’s and she couldn’t stand Margie Adler. But I had waited a whole week to meet Nancy, I wanted to be friends with her, I did not notice her attempts at brush-off. Yes she seemed a little aloof, but I didn’t know her then, whatever aloof things she did I assumed was part of how she was. It never crossed my mind I was being brushed off. I said “let’s have lunch together.”

Nancy took me to the Madison Avenue Pub which I loved. I had never eaten in a place like that before, I felt so sophisticated. The cheeseburger was scrumptious. And Nancy told me she lived a block away. She had a small apartment in a brownstone around the corner from Madison Avenue. Over lunch we totally hit it off. And Nancy and I remain best friends to this day.

Sometimes I had lunch with all the other girls who worked there, which was a lot of fun. I liked the place we all had lunch in, I would order a chocolate egg cream or vanilla egg cream with my lunch, and I loved all the girls, they were great. One of them even turned out to be the big sister of a girl who had been in the clique way back at camp. She was a very pretty girl and very popular girl. Even tho a beautiful Polynesian princess looking girl was the head of the clique, the boys actually chose Phyllis. They were all in love with Phyllis. And Ellen turned out to be Phyllis’ big sister. Altho Phyllis was tall and Ellen was short. Ellen was also very pretty.

Ellen and I must have gone somewhere together at night, and we must have been stoned. Because I remember being in a car with her on 14th Street and I said to her “are you stoned?” And she said “why, am I driving badly?” and I thought, ‘How do I know how someone is driving,’ it never occurred to me to pay attention. I felt close to Ellen because if her sister had been in socialist camp with me it meant her parents were like my parents. Also I felt close to Ellen because she told me her boyfriend used to be Melvyn Margolies. Melvyn Margolies was such a complete and total wild man, that even tho Ellen seemed so lovely so pretty, so elegant, so classy, how could she not be a fun natural girl with a boyfriend like that. It was impossible for me to picture them together. I could not see how any girl would go for Melvyn, he was way too wild.

There was another girl who worked there that I liked a lot. She was a blond. She also lived in the area. And during her lunch hour she would go home to walk and feed and pet her huge German shepherd and I went with her. She was devoted to her dog. She was such a nice girl.

I had a great time when we all went out to lunch together, but as soon as I became best friends with Nancy she and I went to Madison Pub together for cheeseburgers and talked. She liked me very much and invited me to her house around the corner, and soon we had sleepovers. I invited her to my apartment in the East Village and I took her to everything I went to. I took her to an early women’s liberation meeting but that didn’t work for Nancy. But I took her to The Pageant Players loft to watch them perform, and also to go to their workshops on Wednesday evenings. And she loved The Pageant Players.

We’d go back to my apartment after work. I’d take her to B&H, she loved the food. Then I would put on an outfit and get stoned, Nancy didn’t smoke pot. And we’d take the bus to the Pageant Players loft on East Broadway. I remember once getting stoned with Nancy and seeing her with new eyes. “You pretend to be a Jewish social worker” I told her “but really you are Sophia Loren, an Italian actress.” Which was astute of me, Nancy was a beautiful actress, and she is the most dramatic girl I ever met, she is thrilling.

Nancy loved the Pageant Players, and once she brought along her friend from Boston College or from Berkeley, Nancy had gone to both colleges. Her friend critiqued The Pageant Players, “the girls are not good but the boys are great.” I was surprised at the critique because in my mind the Pageant Players were above criticism, they were a glorious amazing experience. Nancy’s friend was like Nancy, and not a little hippie chick like me. She was even more stolid than Nancy. Nancy’s stolidness was just a façade, underneath the girl was wild, just as wild as me, but her friend was not.

The first time I took Nancy to Pageant Players she had not known about the 7 flights you have to climb up to get to the loft, and they are long flights. But the next time she remembered. We stood at the bottom of the steps and she said “I’m not climbing up all those steps.” She refused to budge. I did not know what to do. However I was very stoned. I said “Nancy, they moved down to the loft one flight below, it is not such a long climb.” So she said “OK.” And when we reached the loft she said, “it’s amazing, that one flight makes a big difference.” And I said “they did not move, I made it up.”

Getting Nancy to leave for the Pageant Players wasn’t that easy either. She had her supper at B&H and for dessert she ordered noodle pudding. When it was time to go to East Broadway, Nancy would say “I cannot move! O that noodle pudding!” I was high as a kite and said “that’s OK Nancy, I’ll just ring for the elevator.” Which got her up in a flash, since I lived in a tiny walk-up and there was no elevator.

After we had been friends for a year Nancy said “I have discovered liberation, I stopped wearing my girdle.” And I giggled to myself, because of course by this time I had stopped wearing a bra, I couldn’t imagine Nancy had been wearing a girdle all this time. Who wears a girdle!

I loved sleeping over at Nancy’s house. She would get out negligees for us to sleep in. It was my first negligee, it was so much fun to wear a negligee. And she would make Rice Crispies with milk and sliced bananas for breakfast which I loved. And one time her old boyfriend from college visited and she cooked us roast lamb. I always had delicious food with Nancy. She took me to the Jewish Institute which was a few blocks from where we worked, and we would have delicious lunches there too. And it was Nancy who introduced me to Ideal Coffee Shop, which was a German restaurant on York Avenue, not far from where she lived. I never had German food before, it was so delicious.

The great thing about Nancy is she was always game, and we had great times together. When women’s liberation was invited to a fancy banquet in the art museum in Philadelphia, I went with Jeannie and Ti-Grace Atkinson, and I took Nancy. We met at Grand Central Station and we were late for the train. I charged down the steps and when I turned around to look for Nancy, I was appalled to see her slowly sailing down on the escalator. When she finally reached bottom she said “O Annie you flew! You should have seen your face when you saw me on the escalator.” Nancy had zero interest in women’s liberation but she loved adventure. Jeannie and Ti-Grace talked women’s liberation politics the whole train ride, but Nancy’s comment was about Ti-Grace. “She wears tiger-striped print dress, very low cut, over left breast she wears button ‘Feminism’ and her name is Ti-Grace which sounds like tigress. It is extremely provocative and seductive.”

Eventually Nancy and I switched places. Bill and I got together and we settled down in an East Village apartment, and had a fairly straight life. I was working part-time as Wall Street secretary, he was working as Wall Street messenger and going to school. And Nancy took off for California. Where she joined the “Yea God” group and was on the Yea God love bus. She met Jim Fine on the Yea God love bus. They became boyfriend and girlfriend, and when they got to NYC, they came over to our apartment. And Bill got to meet Nancy and I got to meet Jim Fine.

After that Nancy was rolling stone. She joined another type of Yea God group, which would sit on the pavement on corner of 86th Street and Central Park West with a guru in the middle. And she followed the guru to Ithaca and lived with that group. When she got back to New York City she had a boyfriend from that group, Alan Zeigler, who was also an extremely nice guy. Her boyfriends were all such nice people, I remain friends with Jim Fine and Alan Zeigler to this day.

Then she moved to Puerto Rico and lived with a fisherman there named Edison for a few years. Came back to NYC, went up to Ithaca again to be with that group. That must have been when she returned with Alan. They both dropped out of that group at the same time, and they got an apartment in Brooklyn together. Then Alan moved out and Nancy joined straight life again. She became an artist, she went back to work as a social worker, she adopted her lovely daughter.

I guess Nancy and I just had our ‘60s experiences at different times. Altho she went much further out than I did. All I ever really did was smoke pot, and go to the Pageant Players workshops. I never played volleyball with the Moonies in Berkeley like Nancy did.